Exploiting staggered adoption of the universal demand (UD) laws by 23 states between 1989 and 2005 that makes filing shareholder derivative litigations more difficult, we show that reduced litigation threats improve corporate takeover efficiency. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we...

Banks targeted by hedge fund activism reduces racial disparities in mortgage approval rates and interest rates. However, racial differences in mortgage foreclosure rates do not change, suggesting that the effect is not driven by changes in risk or risk preferences. We find that target banks...

I study how the threat of shareholder litigation affects the cost of bank loans using a natural experiment based on a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Using a difference-in-differences method, I find that increasing the difficulty of securities class action suits decreases loan...